Technology for Mental Resilience

The Taub Faculty of Computer Science recently held its annual social-technological hackathon: CS Hack – Doing Good. This event aims to harness technological innovation for the benefit of society and the community. This year, following the events of October 7 and the Swords of Iron War, it focused on developing technological solutions to improve mental resilience.

Participants in the hackathon – 140 students from all computer science degree tracks – worked on their inventions for 24 hours straight and were mentored by faculty members, researchers, engineers from industry, and therapeutic professionals, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers. During the weeks that preceded the hackathon, the participants met with patients and professionals in order to learn in depth about the relevant fields. The students visited Kfar Sarah, a post-traumatic growth healing center, and attended a lecture by Yotam Dagan, a clinical psychologist who was the specialist for the elite Shayetet 13 unit, entitled “Thoughts about trauma, resilience, and digital mental health.”

The students who won first place. From left: Adan Shamma, Wijdan Eslim, Amal Hihi, Haya Hihi, and Leena Shakour.

First prize went to a group that developed a technology to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through cooking. Their treatment is based on virtual reality (VR) glasses in a virtual kitchen – combining cooking, nature, and music selected by the user. The students in the group were Amal Hihi, Haya Hihi, Leena Shakour, Wijdan Eslim, and Adan Shamma. The idea was conceived by the Hihi sisters, daughters of the late Faiz Hihi, who was killed during his army service. According to Amal, “On the day that Dad was killed, Mom waited for him with a dish of stuffed grape leaves, and since then, for 20 years, she hasn’t been able to prepare this dish. Not long ago, on Memorial Day, Mom took part in a cooking workshop meant to help people cope with loss – and that’s where the change happened, and she went back to making stuffed grape leaves. That is how we understood the enormous potential of cooking as a means of therapy, and that is the background of our initiative.”

The students who won second place.

Second place went to Yinon Goldshtein, Ido Amit, Avishai Mualem, and Avidan Borisov, who developed an AI tool that improves the treatment of PTSD through personally adapted assignments. Goldshtein explained that “psychological treatments sometimes include assignments that the patient must complete at home, such as journaling, where he or she records experiences and small successes, or detailed planning of the following day, or documenting exposure to fears. The system we designed enables the patient to speak in a regular manner to a designated bot. In this way, we improve the home assignments and also help the patient track their progress. The advantage of our group is that we are three master’s students whose field is AI and one psychology student with a background in psychology and cognition, so we were able to combine the therapeutic aspects with the capabilities of language models that function in a local and secure environment.”

The students who won third place together with the members of the jury.

Third place was awarded to Yoav Sahar, Yaniv Vyssokii, Ron Cohen, and Maxim Wainer, who developed a system that cancels out loud sounds such as ambulance sirens, which may trigger PTSD sufferers’ symptoms. The code developed by the team recognizes “triggering” sounds in real time and erases them immediately. In the future, this code could be used to filter unwanted sounds in phone conversations, television shows, and YouTube videos. According to members of the group, “our vision is to expand the code so that it will be able to filter a larger variety of sounds that might frighten all of us these days, including ambulance sirens, motorcycle noise, and firecrackers, so that people with PTSD from their army service and those suffering from anxiety can lead calmer lives.”

The jury also gave special mention to Saar Drive, Keren Losev, Shir Yehyie, Eden Elgavi, and Galor Lazar for developing an internet platform aimed at alleviating emotional and psychological hardships of those serving in the army reserves by making bureaucracy and information about their rights more accessible. The system processes Form 3010 and additional minimal personal data and collects the individual rights and benefits of each reservist from all the various government entities and NGOs. Moreover, the system fills out the relevant forms automatically in order to lighten the bureaucratic burden.

Among the other projects developed by the students include a system for early detection of ASD symptoms, making it possible for the patient to receive treatment at an early stage and recover from PTSD as early as possible by monitoring physiological indicators and responses to text questionnaires; a system that connects to the patient’s smart watch while they’re sleeping and monitors indicators in order to detect an approaching attack, in which case it activates relaxing music until the indicators stabilize; a game of Chasing the Sun based on Google Street View and a well-known technique which has been proven clinically to reduce the risk of PTSD by converting negative memories to positive experiences; and the commemoration project “Remembering their Voices,” where one can listen to texts in the voice of someone who died, alongside the screening of pictures, thereby creating a video featuring their voice and image.

At the start of the event, Prof. Danny Raz, dean of the Taub Faculty of Computer Science, said that “I have many roles as dean, but standing here is one of the most exciting. I can see the energy, the motivation, and the desire to do good in the world. This hackathon has a unique aim – to do good – and like in all things, the most important part is the people: you, the students who will work on the projects, the mentors who will guide them, and no less important, many people who will benefit from these inventions. May you do good and succeed.”

Since October 7, tens of thousands of wounded soldiers and civilians have embarked on rehabilitation processes. According to estimates by relevant professionals, a large share of the wounded is not only coping with physical challenges but also with anxiety, depression, PTSD, problems adapting, problems communicating, and psychotic conditions. Consequently, it is crucial to find efficient solutions related to mental resilience.

Colonel (Res.) Prof. Eyal Fruchter, an alumnus of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and a member of its faculty and the former head of the IDF’s Mental Health Department, lectured at the start of the hackathon. He talked about how PTSD symptoms have been well known for a long time, but the phenomenon’s recognition as an actual disorder is relatively new. In the past, it was ignored and often mislabeled as nostalgia, homesickness, weakness, and other names. “Today, we know many things about PTSD: that it is an actual physiological phenomenon that can have severe ramifications – depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies, addiction to drugs and alcohol, and even cancer; that psycho-therapeutic intervention at an early stage can be very helpful; that we know that defining a person as disabled harms their chances to heal; and that around one-third of the people who currently experience PTSD symptoms will not have PTSD forever. What don’t we know? We still don’t know how to diagnose and evaluate PTSD using objective tools, and this is where your field – technology and computers – can make a big difference. We need technological tools that will help the patients and the therapists. We would like to be able to diagnose people in an objective manner, because this is also in their interest. That is how the ‘cloud of suspicion’ that hovers above them will be removed. As a result, we will be able to provide treatment precisely to those who need it,” he said.

Dr. A., head of the Algorithm Division at Rafael’s R&D Center and a Technion alumnus, told the participants: “I’m here for two reasons – firstly, because I began my professional journey at the Technion and spent a decade of my life here; and secondly, in addition to its significant contribution to Israel’s security, Rafael contributes to society through revolutionary and groundbreaking technological innovations. Already as a student at the Technion, I mentored disabled IDF veterans coping with PTSD, and I understood the importance of personal rehabilitation and mental resilience. I came here today with a team of mentors, engineers from Rafael, in order to help them, and for us it’s a great privilege to be here.”

The hackathon partnered with the Restart NGO, which was established by soldiers wounded during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and seeks to improve the lives of wounded soldiers and help them get their lives back on track. Nir Leon, who headed the NGO’s mentoring program until recently, was wounded during the Second Lebanon War when he was a commander in the reserves. He is 44, married and a father of three, and only discovered that he has PTSD three years after he was wounded. “It was a slow decline,” he says. “My circle of friends shrank, I dropped out of university, I had a hard time keeping a job, I closed up inside myself. When I was diagnosed in 2009, the treatment of emotionally wounded IDF soldiers wasn’t developed like it is today, but at least I understood from what I was suffering.” Regarding the hackathon, he says that “the fact that this event exists is very important in itself, even before we talk about the actual innovations. There’s a large group of students who came to do good – and that shouldn’t be taken for granted. They are being exposed to the world of PTSD and they will tell their friends about it, and in this way awareness about this subject will grow. PTSD must not only be the secret of those who suffer from it.”

The unique hackathon lasted two days (June 20-21) and took place in partnership with the Israel Ministry of Defense, the IEC, Mobileye, Cadence, KLA, Rafael, the Technion’s Center for Student Counseling and Support, and the Technion’s Social Hub. These organizations helped mentor the students and evaluate the solutions. The various projects were presented to the jury, which included tech experts and mental health professionals, and was headed by Prof. Yoram Yovell – a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, author, and brain researcher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.